Ancient German Monastery Must Close Because Monks Are So Few

I have written plenty about a spiritual aspect but I don't have much of a religious aspect and, even so, there's a vague feeling of dysphoria and melancholy at this news.

RT:  900yo German monastery forced to close due to monk shortage


For almost a millennium, the monks served their mission from the moment they joined until they died, often living under the most austere of conditions which most people would never tolerate.  Now it seems so few will tolerate it that not enough new monks come to join the Order.


It's fuckin' tragic, mates.  The monks dedicate their lives to the preservation of knowledge and they were likely almost the sole sources of it in the Dark Ages, etc.  Enlightenment eventually came and so the new age.  If you will accept the idea that monks are dedicated specifically to the preservation of knowledge regardless of which kind then that presents a peach of a segue to one of my favorite sci-fi novels.

Zen Yogi:  "A Canticle for Leibowitz" by Walter Miller?

The very same, my insightful furry friend.

Zen Yogi:  also on the Ithaka Required Reading List?

Of course, Yogi.  If Miller didn't get a Hugo Award out of this, he should have.

Note:  I checked and he did win the Hugo.  (WIKI:  A Canticle for Leibowitz)


In that case, the monks of the Order of Saint Leibowitz dedicated their lives to the preservation of knowledge with the only knowledge they had from prior to the nuke war, a scrap of paper retrieved from a bunker or some such where a minimal number of artifacts sometimes survived.  The monks preserved the note even down to some stains on it because they didn't understand its meaning and wanted to ensure nothing important was omitted.

The acts of preservation by that monastery were also taking place with others which made a situation which is analogous of the modern Catholic church and its monasteries.  From the perspective of the book, the analog is the ancient Catholic church but it didn't exist in that time after it was burned up by the nuke war or most of it.

The apparent human need for that preservation led to that analogous creation and the same thing came from it with another Enlightenment and rebirth from the darkness.  You already know the book is dark simply from the premise of it but it has plenty of room to get darker.


Only six monks remain in the German monastery and it has no chance at survival but it's loss no-one wants to see.  Hopefully the monastery will be respected in whatever becomes of it.